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Cinefantastique
– – (as CFQ) |issues = 173 25 (as CFQ) |editor = Frederic S. Clarke, others David E. Williams, Jeff Bond (as CFQ) }} Cinefantastique was a magazine operating out of Forrest Park, Illinois, devoted to television and film productions in the horror, fantasy, and science fiction genres, including Star Trek. It started out as a fanzine in , under the stewardship of Frederic S. Clarke. Under his auspices, it soon developed into a high-quality critical review magazine, relaunched and with a re-started numbering from onward, with in-depth articles about the genre. The high quality was reflected in the way the magazine was published, being printed on high gloss paper and featuring full-color interior work, with advertising kept to a minimum and those limited to related products. Over time, a more journalistic approach was introduced as a new element in the formula. Reporters were sent out to get firsthand information of the people involved in the genre productions. Another element was introduced in , with the publication of the first double issue covering Star Wars, heralding the advent of theme numbers where editors were able to go in-depth into specific productions in the genre. Double issues became regular occurrences of Cinefantastique. Up until then, the formula was comparable to the contemporary magazine. The magazine had a sister publication, Femme Fatales, which featured interviews with Nana Visitor, Terry Farrell, Chase Masterson, Jeri Ryan, Roxann Dawson, Jennifer Lien, and female Star Trek guest stars. In , founder and chief editor Clarke committed suicide. After his death, perceived quality of the magazine in both content and product (including those with Star Trek contents, as the last few issues covering the subject had not the depth and the wealth of detail that the previous outings had) started to wane noticeably, and readership began to decline rapidly, before the magazine ceased publication in . Mark A. Altman, one of the premier reporters of the magazine, having left the magazine previously, acquired publishing rights with Mark Gottwald and relaunched it under the new title CFQ in . Returning the publication to its original formula of being a critical review magazine, they were unable to regain the popularity it originally had in its heydays and publication ceased in , after twenty-five issues. The contents of the Cinefantastique archives were sold off in the Profiles in History Hollywood Auction 24 of , its unique collection, especially the behind-the-scenes pictorial records, essentially lost for posterity. Cinefantastique relaunched as a webzine in , called Cinefantastique Online, under the supervision of the magazine's former west coast editor, Steve Biodrowski. In , Cinefantastique was purchased by and is now a wholly-owned trademark of Fourth Castle Micromedia, a New York-based company owned by genre marketing veteran Joe Sena. Fourth Castle is best known for their EMCE Toys brand, whose first lines of "Retro Cloth" 8-inch action figures were reproductions of classic Mego toys. Fourth Castle produced a one-shot, Cinefantastique Presents The Ultimate Guide To Zombies, in . The magazine was slated for relaunch in 2015, but this has not come to fruition as of 2020. Biodrowski continues to run Cinefantastique Online and Dan Persons produces podcasts for the publication. ''Star Trek'' affiliation In , became the first television show to be covered in an episode guide issue. The setup differed in that the guide was beefed out with behind-the-scenes articles. The formula was very well received by readers and was later expanded to double issue theme numbers and applied to other popular genre television series of the time, like The X-Files and Babylon 5. Mark Altman, Dale Kutzera, and Anna Kaplan became the premiere reporters on Star Trek. While not as specialized as its contemporaries American Cinematographer and Cinefex, Cinefantastique covered a wider range of behind-the-scenes aspects of productions, which, however, gave a more complete picture of the production of the Star Trek spin-off television series than any of the the contemporary "official" Starlog Press television series magazines. At the time of publication, particularly during the years 1990-2000, Cinefantastique became, therefore, the premier source of contemporary background information on the production of the television series, its two contemporaries concentrating on the film features, and has arguably remained so to this date, especially where and are concerned. Unlike other later, and often somewhat filtered, even redacted, publications, including officially licensed reference books or commentaries on home video releases, Cinefantastique s strength lay in the fact that production staffers of the television series proffered insights about their contributions, while their memories were still fresh, having been interviewed hot on the heels after, or even during, their involvement in a particular season. Cinefantastique s articles were accompanied by behind-the-scenes photographs, taken in person by Cinefantastique staff photographers and/or provided by production staffers themselves (therefore not part of Paramount's licensing department), virtually unseen afterwards. None of these, or any other Cinefantastique artwork, are likely to be seen ever again, as the magazine's archive has ceased to exist after the print publication folded in 2006, with much of its contents being sold in the aforementioned auction held that year. Anna Kaplan cited her interviews about the episode as an example of the magazine's strength, commenting, "Only in ''CFQ could I have written complete coverage of 'Trials and Tribble-ations' Deep Space Nine s homage to classic Trek on its 30th anniversary. I talked to all the writer-producers and many of the people behind and in front of the camera who contributed to that remarkable episode. David Hines also interviewed David Gerrold, who wrote the original series episode . The November 1997 CFQ issue devoted 18 pages to that one episode. None of the other genre publications, not even official Star Trek magazines, provided that kind of coverage." Coverage of the film features through was not as exhaustive as the television series or the earlier films due to the fact that these articles, essentially teasers, were published prior to those film releases, meaning that what information could be divulged was restricted out of necessity. The heavy ''Star Trek coverage during the late 1980s and 1990s alienated some of the long-time readership as well as some of the writing staff, though former staff writer Dan Scapperotti (who had done a piece on Leonard Nimoy for his directorial Star Trek debut, ) mused years later, "I was never terribly interested in ''Star Trek, but those issues paid the bills. Every year you had to come out with least one, because they were really hot issues. Looking back twenty years later, that's interesting stuff."'' After Kaplan, with her colleague Sue Aram, had managed to churn out the last (toned-down) articles for its season 7, the magazine went more or less dark on Star Trek for three years, until an article written by Jeff Bond (at that time serving as the magazine's executive editor) for its short-lived CFQ latter-day iteration, concerning itself with the last season of . His article turned out to be the only in-depth one on Enterprise in particular, and the very last Star Trek-themed article in general, to be featured in the hitherto Star Trek-friendly magazine – even though the magazine had been up and running again when Enterprise had been halfway through its run – before it went defunct indefinitely. ''The Motion Picture'', The Final Frontier, and Nemesis Unlike the other Star Trek productions up to , coverage of , , and was either relatively quite limited (in the first case) or altogether non-existent (in the latter two cases). In the case of Nemesis, this was easily explained by the magazine being in the midst of its transition from Cinefantastique to CFQ, whereas The Final Frontier was conceivably passed over for its very bad reception at the time. Yet, the first case was particularly noteworthy, as The Motion Picture did receive extensive coverage in numerous contemporary magazines such as Starlog, American Cinematographer, and Cinefex, being at the time highly anticipated. Actually, Cinefantastique had planned a theme double-issue for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and contributor Preston Neal Jones carried out extensive interviews with cast and crew for the issue, preliminary excerpts with some of whom actually being pre-published in issue 31, . However, editorial problems, due to the film's last-minute completion and the extent of the draft manuscript, meant that the double issue was never published. A later release of the publication was advertised in several issues of the magazine – Volume 10, Issue 1 (among others) featuring a full-page ad for the release, showcasing the cover art by Roger Stine – but this never came to fruition. The completed cover art was later acquired by Daren Dochterman, having bought it as on in the above-mentioned auction. 142}} After an earlier failed attempt to release the manuscript in , it was ultimately published by Creature Features Publishing in as the reference book Return to Tomorrow - The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, using the original cover art. Notable issues Of particular relevance to Star Trek are the following issues (most of them with recognizable cover art by David Voight, annotated if otherwise): Unknown issue *"DS9: A Novel Approach" by Edward Gross (Interview with Marco Palmieri on the [Trek: Deep Space Nine (Pocket)|post-finale DS9 novels) in Volume 35. External links * – official website ** at Cinefantastique Online * * CINEFANTASTIQUE&etos %|''Cinefantastique''|moviemags.com|MovieMags.com}} – covers for all 170+ issues fr:Cinefantastique Category:Magazines